A Colombian woman reportedly swallowed at least $7,000 U.S. dollars in a desperate act to hide the money during a fight with her husband, according to doctors in the South American nation who extracted the bills through surgery.
The 30-year-old woman swallowed rolls of 100-dollar bills. She told the local RCN television channel she had saved up the money for a holiday with her husband after having sold several electrical household items.
Doctors said they were able to surgically extract 57 100-dollar bills from the woman’s stomach and intestines.
Director of Surgery at the University Hospital of Santander, Juan Paulo Serrano, said the majority of the bills were extracted through a gastronomy through the stomach, whilst additional rolls would be passed through the colon.
“Fifty-seven 100-dollar bills were found and extracted by the orifice opened in the stomach in the gastronomy, through which some extra rolls (of money) were found in the intestine, which advanced to the colon, the lower part of the intestine, in order to be evacuated by normal means through the patient’s intestinal movements.”
The fact the rolls were not wrapped up or packaged suggest they were not swallowed for any form of illicit transport, Serrano said, but rather were ingested in an “act of desperation”.
“She ate rolls of bills, they were not wrapped up for any form of illicit transport. It seems it was an act of desperation by this woman, due to the problem she was facing, to ingest these elements, and this of course affects the patient’s normal intestinal functioning and life.”